A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
~Margaret Mead

Friday, February 22, 2013

A Week in My World - Day 6

Thursday, February 16, 2012

I went to Alima’s house early this morning and we drank tea
before we, along with another girl from her concession complex named Batoma
(Remember what that means? She’s actually named after an older female relative
and so goes by the nickname of Batoma), headed out into the bush to cut wood.
Moose went with us and had probably one of the best days of his young life,
since I set out a bowl of water and let him run wherever he wanted. We walked about
20 minutes outside of town to an area I’ve never been. I guess we call it “the
bush” in Africa because aside from a few trees here and there it’s mostly just
lots of dirt and lots of scrubby brush. That was our target: cutting limbs from
the scrubby brush. Which, let me tell you, is way harder than it looks.

The Bush.

Alima chopping wood.

Alima and Batoma each had a djeli, a sort of hatchet thingy, that they used to cut limbs.
Malian tools aren’t the most stable equipment, and this particular tool is
formed by wedging a piece of metal into a hole in a wooden club, so every now
and then the metal part drops out of the wood handle and you have to pound it
back into place. It pretty much doubles the work, so it’s not exactly a walk in
the park. I was always slightly terrified that Alima would rear back to hatchet
up some wood and the metal blade would go flying off and knock me in the head,
but luckily it always seemed to fall out when the tool was near the ground, and
the closest I came to injury was when I slung it over my back to carry it and
the blade fell out, scraping my leg on the way down.

Alima also used the handle to run through the dead leaves
collected around the bushes before she chopped: she was checking for snakes. I
never would’ve thought to do that, but according to the Commune meeting I
attended last Hot Season, we have cobras, pythons, and vipers in area, so it’s
a good thing Alima had the presence of mind to check! Luckily we didn’t see
anything.

The girls chopped for awhile while I stood around and watched,
and eventually Alima called me over to chop. I’m so thankful that we’re well
past the stage where I’m not allowed to do anything. Now she doesn’t protest
when I do stuff that’s easy (like sweeping my yard) and she humors me and lets
me try stuff that’s hard (like chopping wood) before taking over again. She
watched and giggled as I huffed and puffed and grunted and chopped that tree
(ok, one bush limb) down! All I could think about while trying to chop the same
place over and over was the scene in Titanic when Rose has to use an ax to hack
Jack’s handcuffs apart. Jack was one brave man! If I’d been there instead of
Rose, there’s a good chance Jack would’ve walked out of that room with only one
hand, or at the very least, missing a couple of fingers.

Dragging wood.

I don’t have any pictures of my awesome feat, but by the time
I finished, sweating profusely and out of breath, I felt about the same as I
did in this photo, when my dad made me chop down the whole Christmas tree the
month before I left for Mali. He said since I wasn’t going to be able to help
for the next few years, I had to do it all by myself this time instead of tag-teaming
it. This is how I finished:

(Just imagine dirt instead of snow, bushes instead of trees,
and me without a coat).

After that, I figured I’d made my point. Alima took over again
and my contribution was limited to helping drag the limbs around. The rest of
the time I watched, played in the dirt with sticks, and borrowed the dieli long enough to hack a stick into a
perfect baton so I could play with that, too. Occasionally I got smacked in the
face from a flying sliver of wood. My presence was redeemed when it was time to
go home: I got to help carry the wood! We divided it into 3 piles: a big one
for Alima, a medium one for Batoma, and a little one for me. But still big
enough to look respectable. No one has to know that out of the 40 or so
branches, I only chopped one. That’s right, at least 40! And all of this in the
heat (high 90s, if not low 100s), no shade, and the girls hadn’t even eaten
breakfast, because for some reason there wasn’t any. And all without
complaining or whining. My sister and I would NOT have done well in this
childhood!

Carrying wood home.

I managed to make it back into the village without dropping my
load, and Moose made it back after walking through only one mud puddle, so I’d
say we Sogobas had a successful work day. We grabbed the deck of cards and some
cashews from my house and headed back to Alima’s house to play until lunch was
ready, and then again after lunch. For some reason after awhile all I could
think about was how it’s been a year since I’ve gone to a movie theater, and
how much I really wanted to go. It wasn’t even that I really wanted to see a
show, or that I wanted to be away from the village, I just really wanted to be
in a theater for some reason. The most random things come to your mind out
here, when there’s so much time to think!

I went home alone and did some chores before my mom called for
our weekly chat. I noticed while on the phone that my clock (which has a
built-in thermometer) had ended up in the sun and was now reading 118° - Hot Season
is a-coming! It’s not so bad yet though.

Alima came over to teach me how to cook farani, one of my favorite Malian foods, which is basically fried
dough. You can put various things in it; we chose onion, garlic, and tomatoes –
no hot pepper! Alima knows I have an unreasonably low tolerance for spice. I
tell her it’s my dad’s fault, because he can’t eat spicy foods either.

Cooking farani
turned out to be a way bigger task than I’d imagined. Almost right away Alima
ran off, saying she’d be right back. When she didn’t come back soon, I washed
all of my dishes and sifted the flour we’d need. I spilled a bunch of flour on
the ground, which Alima’s 7-year-old brother Yaya pointed out to me. I knew if
Alima came back and found flour all over the ground she’d lecture me, even
though it’s my flour, so Yaya and I quickly found some dirt to spread over the
top and hide it. Alima still didn’t
come back so after 30 minutes I went out and found her doing a neighbor’s
laundry.

I don’t get it either.

By the time we made the batter and waited for fire to arrive
from Alima’s house, fried it all, refried
it, and ate it, it was about 3 ½ hours later! It was a nice evening though, and
lots of kids came over to hang out and watch. We had one scary moment when
Alima accidentally tipped over the entire pot of boiling oil and it spilled on
the ground mere inches or less from where all the kids were sitting, but thank
Allah it didn’t land on anyone. I really enjoy hanging out with the kids at
night, they have such personalities!

Conversation came around to the fact that I have 3
flashlights. Amadou, my little pistol, said, “Michelli, give me one of your
flashlights!” When I asked why, he said, “So I can go walk around with a girl!”
Everyone cracked up! Then his older brother Sidiki said, “Michelli, I have 2 girlfriends. Adjaratou and you!” I
responded, “Who’s your first girlfriend?” He said it was me, so I accepted
that. I’m not about to be a 2nd girlfriend to anyone, not even an 11
year old! :D